Key Highlights

  • Pakistan's army chief General Asim Munir is headed to Tehran on Thursday as Islamabad intensifies mediation.
  • Iran confirms it is reviewing the U.S. position but offers no timeline for a response to the 14-point MOU.
  • Fresh U.S. intelligence: two-thirds of Iran's missile launchers survived strikes, up from half estimated in April.
  • Iran has restarted drone production during the ceasefire and could restore full capabilities within six months.
  • Brent Crude trades around $105 per barrel, roughly 50 percent above pre-war levels.

Six weeks into a ceasefire that has already been violated by both sides, Thursday brought fresh urgency to the Iran-U.S. diplomatic track. Pakistan's army chief, General Asim Munir, was expected to fly to Tehran for direct consultations, the highest-level in-person engagement since the formal Islamabad Talks collapsed on April 12. Iran's foreign ministry confirmed it had received Washington's latest response and was reviewing it. No timeline was offered.

President Trump, speaking at Joint Base Andrews, left little room for patience. "If we don't get the right answers, it goes very quickly. We're all ready to go," he told reporters. Asked how long he was prepared to wait, Trump said a few days, then added his familiar caveat: "It could go very quickly."

Where the MOU Stands

The framework under discussion is a one-page, 14-point memorandum of understanding circulated in early May by Trump's envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner. It would formally end the war and open a 30-day window for detailed negotiations on three issues: reopening the Strait of Hormuz, limiting Iran's nuclear programme, and lifting U.S. sanctions.

The nuclear terms remain the central sticking point. The draft proposes an enrichment moratorium of approximately 12 years, splitting the difference between Iran's preferred five years and Washington's Demand for twenty. After the moratorium, Iran would be permitted to enrich at a low civilian level of 3.67 percent. Iran would also be required to commit to never seeking a nuclear weapon and, according to earlier reporting, to remove its existing stockpile of highly enriched uranium from the country.

Every message between the two sides must travel to and from Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, who remains in an undisclosed location for security reasons. That structural bottleneck has slowed each round of exchanges and added to Washington's frustration with the pace of the process.

The Intelligence Problem

The more significant development on Thursday came not from the diplomatic track but from U.S. intelligence, that Iran is reconstituting its military capacity much faster than initially estimated. Two-thirds of Iran's missile launchers are now believed to have survived the strikes, up from roughly half in April, partly because the ceasefire has given Tehran time to excavate launchers buried but not destroyed. Iran has also restarted drone production. Reports shows that the war set Iran back by months, not years, and that full drone attack capabilities could be restored within six months.

This matters because it directly undercuts the strategic rationale for the military campaign. The Trump administration launched the conflict in part on the premise that sustained strikes would degrade Iran's ability to threaten regional allies. That assumption is now openly in question at the intelligence level.

Hormuz and the Energy Market

The Strait of Hormuz remains largely closed to routine commercial traffic. Iran this week asserted a "controlled maritime zone" requiring transit authorisation from an Iranian-designated authority. Some vessels, primarily Chinese and South Korean tankers operating under bilateral arrangements, have passed through. But volumes remain a fraction of the 125 to 140 daily passages that characterised normal operations.

Brent crude is trading around $105 per barrel, up from a sharp drop the previous session driven by cautious deal optimism. Prices are roughly 50 percent above pre-conflict levels and peaked at $116 per barrel in March. Abu Dhabi National Oil's chief executive has said a full recovery in regional oil flows is unlikely before late 2027, regardless of how the negotiations conclude.

What to Watch

Three variables will determine whether the next few days bring a breakthrough or another deadline extension. First, whether General Munir's Tehran visit produces any concrete movement on the MOU terms. Second, whether Tehran's review of the U.S. position results in a substantive counter-proposal or another reiteration of its 14-point framework. Third, whether the intelligence picture on Iran's military rebuild changes Trump's calculus on the cost of continued patience. It did not appear to on Wednesday. Whether it does by the weekend is less certain.